IRSCL NEWSLETTER
No. 48 Autumn/Winter 2004
3
Letter from the President
In the UK, the end of the autumn semester looms into view and I am becoming aware of how quickly the new year will be upon us. The start of the year brings with it the final deadline for responses to the Call for Papers for the 2005 congress (see below) and I hope as many members as possible plan to be in Dublin for what promises to be an intellectually rewarding and socially enjoyable gathering. The plenary speakers offer a particularly good blend of the academic, the literary and the entertaining, and the setting in Trinity College is both distinguished and central, providing a spectacular backdrop for presentations and discussions in the heart of a fine city that loves literature and talking about it! As you will see in the list of new members, many active scholars, both new and established, have joined us recently, and this will be the first opportunity for many of us to meet and work with them. It will also be a chance to catch up with old friends and colleagues, many of whom we will not have seen since the Kristiansand congress. Appropriately, the proceedings from Kristiansand will be launched in Dublin, so it will be possible to see how that event has been distilled on the page and how work presented there evolved in the process.
Membership is growing steadily at individual and institutional levels, reflecting both increased activity in the field of Children’s Literature Studies and recruitment activities on the part of the Board. I would like to thank Anne de Vries, our Treasurer and Membership Secretary for his particularly strenuous efforts to bring in new members and look after those we have. In 1971 when the IRSCL formally came into being, there were 50 members from 18 countries. This autumn we welcomed our 284th member and now have representation in 46 countries. Increasing membership means increasing opportunities for dissemination, collaboration and interaction, and I hope that you will use the congresses, the website and the discussion list to keep in contact and work together because by doing so, the needs of researchers in the field are most likely to be identified and addressed.
One of the most important benefits of a society such as the IRSCL is the opportunity it provides for research exchange. Often this takes place between members who have known each other through the Society for some time, but it is just as often the case that existing members meet and work with new colleagues independently and introduce them to the IRSCL. This is how I learned about the IRSCL some years ago, when Emer O’Sullivan called my attention to some proceedings that moved my own research on significantly. More recently, two members, Rolf Romoren and Elise Tonnessen, were invited to work with Iranian colleagues and the result was a very dynamic exchange that has inspired both Norwegian and Iranian participants – and brought us some very well qualified new members. A brief account of this event is published below.
Finally, I had the opportunity to meet a number of IRSCL members at the conference run by the International Institute Charles Perrault in Paris last week (previously announced in the newsletter and on the website) and modestly sponsored by the IRSCL among others. Jean Perrot and his team put together a wide-ranging event, with speakers talking about everything from the work of Comeius and interpretations of Homer to currently popular role-playing games. The range was quite appropriate since the purpose of the event was to explore the dynamic relationship between heritage and mass media in children’s literature. Papers from the conference will be published in due course and details will be provided on the website.
Kimberley Reynolds
IRSCL 17th Biennial Congress: EXPECTATIONSAND EXPERIENCES: CHILDREN, CHILDHOOD AND CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
13 – 17 August, 2005
The Bookworm logo for the conference was designed by Irish illustrator Niamh Sharkey and can be seen in full colour on the website.
Proposals are invited for papers and panels exploring the IRSCL seventeenth conferences theme, ‘Expectations and Experiences: Children, Childhood and Children’s Literature’. Aspects of the theme which the conference will focus on include the topics of childhood and families, childhood and morality, childhood on display, and childhood and theory.
Strand A. Childhood and families
1. Generations: definition of generations by age, experience, responsibility, interaction. Models and representations of parents, grandparents, extended families. Relations between the age groups as markers of social change.
2. Alternative families: adoption, fostering, same-sex parents, growing up in care, children caring for children, children alone, substitute parents/families.
3. Nation as family: switching/regaining cultures, immigrants/emigrants, choosing between competing cultures. Competing notions of family among different cultures. 'Belonging' in terms of family and in terms of nation.
4. Families of writers: comparing the work of writers who are related to each other.
Strand B. Childhood and morality: message and medium
1. Discovering responsibility: visual,
oral, written and multimedia texts
for children as a means of exploring
issues of right and wrong.
2. Protecting children: censorship.
Changing notions and areas of
censorship.
3. Innocence and experience:
religion(s) in visual, oral, written
and multimedia texts for children.
4. Celebrating adolescence: texts
reflecting the specific concerns of
adolescents.
Strand C: Childhood on display
1. The representation of childhood in picture books/illustrated books/comics for children.
2. The representation of childhood in film/TV for children.
3. The representation of childhood in stage productions for children.
4. The representation of childhood in non-fiction: history, science books, information leaflets for children. How does non-fiction construct images of childhood?
Strand D: Childhood and theory
1. Theories of childhood: development, gender, class, race, and how these relate to models in fiction.
2. Theories of literature and childhood as they relate to children's literature.
3. Theories of play and playfulness in relation to children's literature.
4. Theories of oral culture: folklore and storytelling as they relate to visual, oral, written and multimedia texts for children.
Proposals should be approximately 300 word in length; they should indicate the title of the proposal, the primary texts under consideration, a description of the paper’s content and the arguments to be developed.
Proposals for panels should include a list of all presenters, proposals for each of the papers to be presented (these may be 150-200 words each), and an outline of the overall theme of the panel and the form which it will take.
Proposals must adhere to the theme of the congress and should indicate under which strand of the theme they should be considered. As always for IRSCL congresses, work presented MUST be new, which means it should not previously have been presented in public in any form or forum.
Twenty minutes will be allocated for each paper, and up to two hours for each panel presentation. In the case of panels, no presenter should speak for more than 20 minutes and time must be allocated for discussion. For poster presentations of work in progress, authors will have 10 minutes to present their topic, based on a poster. Contributions for these sessions may be less fully developed pieces of research than the papers presented in the 20 minute formal papers, and those who attend the poster presentations will be invited to respond to them to help improve the work as it progresses by, for instance, making bibliographical recommendations, offering ideas about methodology and so on.
Proposals should indicate if the modes of presentation involve the use of DVD, video or other non-print media.
The closing date for proposals is January 31 2005.
All proposals will be reviewed before acceptance and notification of acceptance or otherwise will be given by April 30 2005.
Criteria for acceptance includes:
· Adherence to congress theme
· Originality of research
· Clarity of description
If possible, proposals should be submitted electronically in Word format. The name and contact details of the person submitting the proposal or the leader of the panel should be indicated clearly at the top of the proposal.
Please send proposals to:
Valerie Coghlan, The Library, Church of Ireland College of Education
96 Upper Rathmines Road, Dublin 6, Ireland
e-mail:
New Members
We are pleased to welcome 1 new institutional member and 23 new individual members. Several members have joined after meeting IRSCL members at conferences and other academic events. Do please remember to mention the Society to colleagues whose research interests reflect those of the society and who could benefit and contribute to the work of the IRSCL. Information about the Society and application forms can be found on the website: www.irscl.ac.uk.
School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne (United Kingdom)
Holly Blackford, Assistent Professor & Writing Director, Rutgers University, Camden (USA)
Jeffrey Brewster, Head Librarian, International School of Brussels (Belgium)
Elizabeth Ann Bullen, Lecturer, Deakin University, Warrnambool, Victoria (Australia)
Michael Cadden, Associate Professor of English, Missouri Western State College (USA)
Christina M. Desai, Reference Librarian and Assistant Professor, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale (USA)
Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak, Assistant Professor, Institute of English Studies, University of Wrocław (Poland)
Maria-Venetia Kyritsi, PhD student, University of East Anglia, Norwich (United Kingdom)
Benjamin Lefebvre, PhD candidate / teaching assistant, McMaster University, Hamilton (Canada)
Krystallia Makatou, Postgraduate student, Aegean University, Rhodes (Greece)
Hiroko Matsushita, Lecturer, Kansai University and Kobe Shoin Women’s University (Japan)
Kathryn McInally, PhD student, Deakin University, Melbourne (Australia)
Sabeur Mdallel, PhD student / Lecturer, Ecole Supérieure des Sciences Humaines, Jendouba (Tunisia)
Fereshteh Mehrabi, Lecturer, German Department, University of Isfahan (Iran)
Wendy Michaels, Lecturer, University of Newcastle, NSW (Australia)
Emiliya Ohar, Associate Professor, Ukrainian Publishing and Printing Academy, Lviv (Ukraine)
Nathalie op de Beeck, Assistant Professor, Illinois State University (USA)
Marek Cezary Oziewicz, Assistant Professor / Director of the Center for Children’s and Young Adult Fiction, Institute of English Studies, University of Wrocław (Poland)
Elizabeth Parsons, Lecturer, Deakin University, Burwood, Victoria (Australia)
Elisabeth Stuck, Lecturer, University of Freiburg (Switzerland)
Anna Tadajewska, PhD student, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń (Poland)
Gaby Thomson-Wohlgemuth, PhD student, University of Surrey Roehampton, London (United Kingdom)
Lynne Vallone, Professor of English, Texas A&M University (USA)
Pádraic Whyte, PhD student, Trinity College, Dublin (Ireland)
Members’ News
This feature depends on members’ informing us about significant events in their own and their colleagues’ professional lives. News about promotions, job changes, awards, PhD success and so on gives a useful picture of the vitality of research in children’s literature around the world. Announcements will also appear on the website between newsletters, so do please send Kim Reynolds relevant items. Photographs and other visual materials are also welcome for the website as appropriate.
Members will be impressed to know that Morteza Khosronejad’s recently published book, "Innocence and Experience: An introduction to the Philosophy of Children's Literature", 2003 (the book is written in Persian and this title is his translation of the original) was selected as the best piece of research in Iran since 1997. The award, under the auspices of Kanoon (the Institute for Intellectual Development for Children and Young Adults) was presented at the first Festival of Research in 2004.
Congratulations to Emer O'Sullivan, who was appointed Professor of English in the School of Cultural Studies at the University of Lüneburg in October 2004. Her new contact details are Professor Emer O’Sullivan, Universität Lüneburg, 21332 Lüneburg, Germany Email:
Birthday greeting to Klaus Doderer at 80!
In 1963 the Institut für Jugendbuchforschung (Institute for Children’s Literature Research) was founded as part of the literature department of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University in Frankfurt a.M. Klaus Doderer was elected to be its first Director and in the years that followed, through his research and teaching he succeeded in making the Institute known worldwide. During this period he was an invited speaker in Stockholm, Bratislava, Vienna, and Moscow, as well as in South America and in the USA, where he was a Guest Professor at Trenton State College. One of the results of his manifold ideas was the founding of the IRSCL in 1970 in Frankfurt a.M, leading to developments in teaching and research at an international level.
One of the foremost results of the Institute’s research-results was the Lexikon der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur (Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature), which was published from 1975 –1983 with Klaus Doderer as the editor. The Lexikon established Doderer’s reputation in the field of children’s literature. But it was only one part of his broad fields of interest, and in tandem with work on the Lexikon, he pursued other research projects including: The short story (1953), based on his doctoral thesis, classical children’s books (1969), fables (1970), picturebooks (1973), fairy tales (1983) and not to forget his detailed studies of the theatre genre: The professional situation of actors (1993) and the history of children’s theatre 1945 to 1970 (1995). The last study is placed parallel to the study Zwischen Trümmern und Wohlstand (1988), which discusses the situation of the post-World War II children’s literature in Germany. In 2002 he published his studies on Erich Kästner, a writer with whom he felt great affinity and whose stories Doderer maintains (and I agree) are the highlight of German children’s literature.
Beside his teaching, writing and researching Klaus Doderer collaborated with IBBY (Basel) and the German IBBY-section (Munich), where he took an active part in the promotion of literature and reading as well as many other kinds of cultural activity. As if children’s literature weren’t a large enough field, he also researched and discussed the rise of children’s mass culture and many related areas.
Klaus Doderer has been awarded several prizes: he is an honorary member of IRSCL and in 2004 he was given the “Bundesverdienstkreuz” [Order of Merit] by the Federal President of Germany.- So, what can be said at last, except: Ad multos annos, dear Klaus and “Happy Birthday”!
Winfred Kaminski
News from Institutional Members
Institutional membership is an effective way to support the work of the IRSCL, to disseminate information about the Society’s activities and those of its members, and to alert members to relevant activities and resources at each others’ institutions. If your university/institution/region has a research centre, library collection or other organisation that reflects the work of the IRSCL, it would be helpful if you would introduce the idea of institutional membership. The annual fee for institutions is just $60 (US).